A Swellesley reader this week brought to our attention the recent passing of Lucinda Franks, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who grew up in Wellesley. While we weren’t familiar with Franks’ work, in hindsight it’s hard to figure out how we missed all this.
A New York Times obituary describes Franks as a “tough and scrappy reporter with an eye for the hot story.” The Times would know, since she wrote for it, among many others, including The Atlantic and The New Yorker. She won the Pulitzer in 1971 for reporting a series on the Weather Underground, which the Times described as a “domestic terrorist organization.”
She also wrote books, including “My Father’s Secret War: A Memoir” about her father’s work as an American spy during World War II. In her bio for the memoir “Timeless: Love, Morgenthau, and Me,” Franks describes Wellesley, where she grew up in the 1950s and 1960s
She wrote in part:
I was born near Boston, in the manicured suburb of Wellesley, a universe away. It was a town, like many others, of wealth, social status, and women who often had raised noses. Wellesley College, one of the famous ‘Seven Sisters,’ was a separate entity, hardly spoken of. Instead, the guilty pleasure of this upper middle class Republican enclave was the paranoid John Birch Society, mother to the paranoid Tea Party decades later. In my memory, the town remains a collage of slouchy bobby sox (pity to you if you wore thin skinny sox), ‘make-out parties’ where stubby hands groped underneath shirtwaist dresses the color of popsicles, and boy’s big football cleats swinging absurdly from their girlfriends’ necks.
Franks lived in New York at the time of her death.
Dear Penny, So sad to read of your sister, Lucinda’s death. I meeting her once at your house on Forrest St. Later I read about her receiving a Pulitzer Prize and thought how wonderful that must be! Believe it or not, I have thought about you and wandered how you were faring. I remember your mother too. What a beautiful person she was and very pretty like her 2 girls! I have been living in my families homestead but will soon be moving to the MidWest. If you should read this, know that my heart grieves with you. Remember that the love you held for Lucinda and her’s for you will remain eternal! Love and sweet prayers, Joanne N Ford
While I did not know Lucinda Franks among the upperclassmen, I remember that Lucinda’s younger sister Penny was a fun-loving young lady in our Phillips school and junior high years in Wellesley. Penny and I walked 0.5 to 1.4 miles to and from school together. Their father was quiet indeed, but Mrs Franks and the family welcomed us girls warmly to Penny’s bas mitzvah. They hosted friendly home gatherings in their Forest Street neighborhood. Those were the days “B B” — before bussing, before boys! We were part of the post-war baby boomers, many from large families among lots of kids. There were 2 newspapers, the BOSTON GLOBE and the BOSTON HERALD. Although Senators Margaret Heckler and Edward Brooke were Republicans, there were many Democrats. Folks liked President JFK, his youth and intelligence, and his book PROFILES in COURAGE. History teacher Mr Hanlon boomed on the bloody history of Sennacherib among the Assyrians beheading the Babylonians in Ancient History class. So different from today’s peculiar and limited narratives trying to cancel culture and history.